Thoughts penned by Belinda Emmett after she found  out she was dying from cancer: Â
Â
I would have gone to bed  when I was sick  instead of pretending the earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren’t there for a  day…  Â
I would have burned the pink candle sculpted into a rose before it melted in storage…Â Â Â
I would have talked less  and listened  more….   

I would have invited  friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained or the sofa faded…   

I would have eaten  popcorn in the ‘good’ living room and worried much less about the dirt when someone wanted to light a fire in the fireplace…   

I would have taken the  time to listen to my  grandfather ramble about his youth…  Â
I would have shared more of the responsibility carried by my husband…   

I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed…   

I would have sat on the lawn with my grass  stains…   

I would have cried and laughed less while watching television and more while watching life… Â
I would never have  bought anything just  because it was practical, wouldn’t show soil or was guaranteed to last a lifetime…  

Monthly Archives: January 2009
‘If I had my life to live over’, by Belinda Emmett
God always brightens the road
I was feeling a bit down (Bronwen says ‘depressed’) at having to go into Christchurch on Monday for the Gastroscopy. Constant heavy pain is very wearying and I was asking her in none to hopeful tones how long I must put up with the pain.
Thanks to the Auckland ‘bug’ I did not have to wait for hours in the A & E waiting room. I was whisked into a private room where the Oncology Registrar ‘just happened’ to be attending a patient in an adjacent room. I had seen this doctor around the Oncology Department on other occasions because he is chinese and I am attracted to anyone with Asiatic blood.
While he attended me, he wanted to know what I do, whereupon he volunteered that he and his wife came from Kuching and were considering volunteering for mission work in Myanmar with OMF (formerly CIM, the mission my parents were with in China). He attends a Chinese church in Christchurch where the choir and music group had held a retreat in our church hall in Hanmer Springs the year before. His wife had been in the group. I remembered their visit well.
That encounter perked up my day immensely and Bronwen and I both later commented how God always sets someone along the way to cheer us when we most need it.
Auckland has it all …
… or so they like to think!
When I reported to A & E on Monday for my Gastroscopy, the moment the Triage Nurse discovered I had been in Auckland Public Hospital I jumped the queue and was ushered into a private room where I was checked over and admitted.
After the Gastroscopy I was taken to the Oncology ward where I was given a room to myself. I did not realise immediately that it was an Isolation Ward and that I was confined to that room for the duration of my stay. Medical staff all donned special aprons to attend to me.
I assured them that I was no longer highly radio-active as it was now 19 days since the spheres were inserted. That was not what they were worried about. It was the fact that I had been in an Auckland hospital during the past 12 months.
I thought the medical staff in Christchurch must hold their Auckland counterparts in very high esteem to fast-track admission for people who have been in their care. Not so.
Auckland is cursed with a deadly strain of Staphloccci (MRSA) that has not yet reaced the South Island. This bug has developed immunity to antibiotics and proves fatal. It is common overseas and in the North Island. South Island hospitals want to keep it out as long as they can, hence the urgent precautions and additional tests I had to undergo.
Aucklanders like to think they have everything but the rest of NZ does not always want what they have to offer.
Every cloud has a silver lining though. It meant I had my own room with my own TV and personalised attention. I could also sleep without ear-plugs! Thankyou Auckland.
Is there a ‘Job’ factor?
I’ve just returned home from three days in hospital. Since 3 days after having the radio-active spheres inserted I have been experiencing strong pain in the stomach and abdomen. On some occasions it has been so strong I have not been able to make myself comfortable for several hours. My only medication has been 2 Paracetamol four times daily and over the last week, 20mg Losac morning and night. On Monday morning, I phoned the research nurse in Christchurch, who after consulting the Oncologist, advised me to come in to the hospital for a gastroscopy.
Monday afternoon I had the procedure and was admitted for the night. Â There was a suspicion one of the spheres might have moved from the liver into the duodenum that was very inflamed. I also had gastritis in the stomach. The doctors kept me another night and a third as they sought to control the pain. Instead, Bronwen and I saw the new year in at our friend’s place in in Christchurch before returning to Hanmer Springs. (We also considered it would be quieter in Christchurch than at home where we live right over the road from the hotels and halls where the New Year celebrations would be rowdy)
I was ‘reprimanded’ for the Duncan gene that accepts pain as a part of life and when it strikes, one just gets on with it! The doctors informed me the situation could have become more serious and that while the body is focusing on fighting pain, it is diverted from dealing with the issue that has caused it. My collection of drugs has now grown and includes Morphine as well as some to rebuild the linings of the stomach and duodenum.
What a way to end 2008. Every procedure I’ve had so far has had added complications.